Temple and Dinners

 

Martha at the Johannesburg Temple

We've been here in Joburg a month tomorrow. Martha drove home from church today, her first time on the right side of the car and left side of the road, and she did great! It's getting to be pretty normal for Bob now.

We're starting to feel at home and getting to know many of the members of the Protea Glen Ward in Soweto. We had a marvelous fast and testimony meeting this morning, great lessons in Sunday School, Priesthood and Relief Society and another baptism. 

We had a good, jam-packed week. Martha is becoming really busy in her role as Assistant Executive Secretary to the Area Presidency and actually had a busier week than Bob had! We're settled in our new 2-bedroom 2-bathroom apartment and loving it! Here are some photos of our lounge (living room), dining room and kitchen. 

 

Lounge

Lounge

Dining Room

Kitchen

  

Kitchen

Kitchen Bar & Stools, Grandchildren Photos

The Johannesburg Temple opened up again this week, and we went to the temple twice. On Tuesday, we went on an endowment session with about 20 new young missionaries who just arrived in the Johannesburg MTC. There were 8 elders and a sister who received their own endowments in our session!

There are 24 seats in each of 4 endowment rooms, but they brought in 5 extra chairs in our session, so we had 29 patrons - 23 men and 6 women. We were invited because they needed four couples for the prayer circle, counting the MTC President and his wife, who were the witness couple... It was a great experience!

Then we went back to the temple again Friday for the wedding of Zack Lowe from Cape Town and his new bride. His dad, who was a bishop there when Bob was mission president, and his mom, who was our interior decorator and framed all our pictures in the mission home, invited us. It was fun to see how a temple wedding is done in South Africa!

We had three fun dinners Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Thursday evening we were invited to a dinner at the Sunnyside Park Hotel where the Area was hosting all the Church's national public affairs directors from 26 countries in the Africa Southeast Area for a training conference. We sat next to Suzan Apondi Mwanga (one of Bob's missionaries), the national PA Director from Uganda, and Womba Makuwa Nashiwaya, the national PA director for Namibia (who Bob called to that position 8 years ago) and they showed "Meet the Mormons," which none of them had seen before. What a fun evening! Both women were so excited to see Bob and meet Martha. 

 

With Suzan Apondi Mwanga and Womba Makuwa Nashiwaya

On Friday evening, we hosted six other senior missionary couples for dinner and a get-to-know-you activity in our new apartment. We really enjoyed the evening and got better acquainted with all of them.  

And last night we drove to Randberg, about a half-hour northwest, to the home of Mark Pearl (one of Bob's AP's) for a South African braai (barbecue) on his patio. He and his cute wife Genevere (and their sharp 3-year old son Daniel and darling baby Juliette) hosted us and Genevere's mom and dad. Her dad is Rolf Randall, the director of finance in the Area office. The food was great, and we visited non-stop for four hours, getting caught up on everyone and everything, and forgot to take even one photo!

We are happy, healthy and busy and loving our African adventure.